Going Under
by revuko
Summary: As Point Man and Forger, they've managed to create an impressive team in the dreamshare world after the inception job, but it can't last forever. They knew the illusion of safety was going to shatter at one point, they just didn't expect Arthur to get buried under the rubble of their success. Literally. A buried alive fill off the inception meme.
1. Chapter 1

Based off the prompt on the inception_kink meme which I can't link here, but will put on my account - there are other wonderful fills that came before mine so you should check those out, too! It's a popular prompt that I was inspired by as well, I hope the addition of one more is an enjoyable read (if dark and morbid) as well. I posted the beginning of it on the prompt, but I've made a few editing changes yes, the anon one is mine.

This story will contain kidnapping, torture of the mind and body, violence, swearing, being buried alive, and all the repercussions of those things, if this story gets long and out of hand, maybe more, SO HEED THESE SERIOUSLY

As an important sidenote: I hope everyone who is or will potentially be effected by the hurricane will be smart and safe. Best wishes from everyone that things turn out alright once this storm is over.

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I do not own this, Inception and recognizable characters belong to Christopher Nolan

**Warnings for this chapter: graphic description of fighting**

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Going Under

In comparison to their last couple jobs together, the one lined up next for Eames and Arthur is actually fairly simple. Even though the mark is an ex-military man, he is not militarized in the head because of his dishonorable discharge long before the PASIV program came into being. The lack of militarization always makes the extraction business much more colorful and sporadic when the dreamer isn't trained to be suspicious of dreams. Eames had teased Arthur about it when it came up, with this dream having the potential of being a lot more creative than their recent ones. In a quieter part of the brain he was still marveling at the idea of creating a kick in free fall. He certainly wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer to that with all his out-of-the-box boasting. His comment was met with an eye-roll. So okay, maybe Arthur wasn't as one dimensional as a loyal puppy to Cobb, and he had the habit of knowing everything that was going on, and maybe Eames respected this kid who he couldn't quite out a finger on and had no real person for the Forger to copy down to a T. Plus, Arthur seems to have warmed up to Eames as well. Their constant baiting of each other hasn't diminished any, but the bite has seeped from their words over the course of their makeshift partnership.

It's the first day of their latest job together. Halloween, actually. Eames personally hadn't celebrated it to such an extent back in his hometown, but respected the holiday of looting candy and pretending you're someone else. He never could have imagined spending Halloween invading people's dreams and stealing their innermost secrets back when he was a kid.

Their mark was Gerald Lexington. He had been seen lingering in the little Missourian town that is closest to that of a no-longer-operational governmental lab, hidden beneath the soil and under the guise of grain processing plant. Some higher ups who didn't give their names (but had flashed some pretty and completely official badges) wanted to know what was going on in Lexington's head. Eames got the call from an old friend of his and he called Arthur soon after.

The two strikingly different men had started a fragile project together of becoming the revamped duo of Cobb and Arthur. Well, it isn't necessarily what they intended initially, but after job after job closing like clockwork, their fame grew in the dreamshare world each day, not only meeting the reputation Arthur used to have with Cobb, but blowing that status out of the water. This had its drawbacks being so well known, but gallivanting the globe, pulling off 'the impossible' with a full pocket and no sense of self preservation in the line of duty had no price tag. It is exciting; it's what makes Eames feel alive. After inception, he realized that Arthur got the same thrill of defying the impossible that he did; and without the need to make sure Dom made it home, Arthur agreed to work alongside Eames for a large majority of his jobs.

So call it what you will, maybe a shiver down his spine, or the constant twitch of his fingertips, or his newly acquired spider sense, what have you, but Eames knows something is wrong the moment he enters the hangar.

He saunters in through the cracked open sliding door of the abandoned military base they've decided to take refuge in. With a scan of the room, he takes a quick headcount and it's clear they are short one Arthur. He motions to the empty desk with his thermos of tea (he couldn't risk buying a cup of it in this small of a town, his clothes and accent would be a little _too _memorable for his liking), asking anyone in the room who happens to be looking at him where the tightly wound proprietor of the desk was.

Eames has never really been known for his sparkling attendance, but at least he made an effort to get there within thirty minutes of their designated starting time. As for Arthur, he is always _always _the first one to the 'office'. So with knowing this, the lack of files and a humming laptop on the first day catches Eames off guard quite thoroughly.

Wilkes barely glances up from his Bristol board model of his museum before focusing his attention back to the paper he was cutting through with his Exacto knife.

Eames resists the annoyed twitch of his lip at the man and moves to his section of the sprawling space instead, deciding to let this one go as an anomaly of Arthur's track record. He flops into his chair with the grace of a lumbering dog and picks up the neat stack of files placed there for him the night before on the man he was supposed to forge for the mission.

After ten minutes of flipping through the list of restaurants George Kotsiopoulos frequents, Eames can't take it anymore; the silence is getting heavy due to the lack of furious flying of fingers tapping on the keyboard from Arthur's desk.

He tosses the open file onto the mess of files he's scattered about already and leans back in his seat, arms twined across his chest when he raises his voice to be heard by each of the team members. "So where_ is _our Point Man?"

"Late," Wilkes sniffs, his tone raspy from his bad smoking habit, "how's he s'posed to brief us on the job when he's not here? We can't work blind."

An airy, Italian lilted voice cuts through the string of complaints like a knife. "He sent us all the brief in an email so there's nothing for you to be confused about unless you admit to not being fully knowledgeable about what you were getting into, Charles. _Stronzo_." The words are sharp and efficient, if not deceptively alluring in the voice they're strung together with.

Their extractor, Catalina, was the one who invited Eames onto the job and seems infinitely more interested in the potential situation than the architect muttering to himself is. It's hard to care about Wilkes and the rod shoved up his ass (such a large pole in fact, that the one Arthur is known for having is dwarfed in comparison) when Cat is slinks over, a soft smile on her face when she nicks the Englishman's tea and takes a small sip, eyes sparking with a barely concealed taunt. The damn minx.

She opens her mouth and okay, maybe she wasn't trying to conceal that taunt at all. "Are we just not interesting enough for you, _darling_?" her eyebrow raises in challenge. But her expression sharpens instantly when Eames purses his lips into a worried line, the lack of volleyed flirtations cuing her instantly on weight of the situation.

Cat sobers up her playful mirth quickly. "He hasn't called, if that's what you're asking." She straightens to meet Eames eye to eye and Wilkes hacks out a phlegmy cough from his dark corner.

_Idiot _he thinks first. Eames glares at the bitter architect before pulling his attention back to Cat. She's wearing a worried crease in her brow and it takes the man a second to realize that she's mirroring his. _Shit _is what he thinks second.

"He could just be late you know," Cat offers hopefully.

But Eames shakes his head to dismiss the preposterous suggestion. He's not being paranoid, knowing peoples' tics is his job, and he's damn good at it. The best, from what he knows. And even a forger wet behind the ears after three jobs should know that Arthur is set up and neck deep in his research long before the rest of the team even decides to show up. This particular heist is about their fortieth job on the same team. Arthur being late - scratch that - _one hour _late, has wrong written all over it.

"He doesn't do late."

Cat nods in understanding and whips out her phone, dialing the number which Eames is sure the lovely woman can recite by heart already, with the rate of information exchange that goes on between extractor and point.

But when Cat shoots him a look when she tries to call Arthur, one that says _he didn't pick up_, Eames is already halfway out the door. Any good forger would know that Arthur always picks up when someone on the team calls. Eames tells himself that he only knows this because it's his job to observe how people act, not because he knows this from the fact that he's sending a majority of those calls and text messages.

He's sitting in his nondescript 1982 Ford pickup for a minute, staring off into the field that stretches out in all directions from their hideout with the car already sputtering with life. He tries to keep the knot of worry down but he just can't push it away. His grip clenches like iron on the steering wheel and he's shaking it as if he could rip it right off. He probably could too, with this hunk of junk.

"Shit. _Fuck_!"

People like Arthur are too good to just be bait nowadays. Whatever happened, he was the target. Vendettas against dreamers are rarely pretty. And rarely are they ever hostage situations. In this world - the seedier world Eames dragged Arthur into – people like these aren't looking for money.

But he can't afford to think like that.

He puts the car in drive and speeds off.

* * *

Arthur was taken up by Mal and Dom during his stint in the military for one reason: he was the best. He didn't get to be the top of the subdivision without knowing how to fend for himself.

He's had a couple of scuffles; he's been chased through cities, chases with guns even. True, he's taken a few bullets before, but he's dusted off his mournfully ruined suits each time and pulled off an escape. The last time took him by surprise at an Opera house, and he had been wearing a heavenly black Fendi with narrow lapels and two buttons and it fit him so well that he didn't even have to get it tailored; it was such a shame he took a bullet right in the shoulder while wearing it, with a goddamn shotgun no less, so the back was now a wasteland of holes and tears and blood.

But even with a new set of stitches and a few extra bruises, he always wakes up the morning after the chase with a light feeling in his chest and a heavy sum in his wallet, signs of a job well done. Most of the time, these hijinks are when he decides to take up the jobs with Eames and his less than savory clientele who are so deep within the underbelly of the illegal world that they know actually quite a lot about dreamshare, or rather, what they can do with it. Nothing better than extracting from crime syndicates and mobsters all over the world. But he just can't say no whenever Eames rings him up with the customary "_Arthur! I was wondering, look, sorry about the close call last time, but I really think you'd enjoy this next job..._" And god help him, he goes every time. He can get shot at and chased and threatened, but like a shadow, he slips out of their fingers each time, and they will never know it's him. And the call of the chase sucks him back all over again.

Bottom line, Arthur doesn't get caught. Ever since entering this globetrotting web of stealing thoughts from bad guys, he has about ten names on rotation (Arthur only being used for the more political jobs rather than the recently monikered 'black market' ones that Eames has a habit of taking). No one comes after him once he's disappeared. He changes his social security number once every month. He doesn't exist. A man who doesn't exist can't be tracked.

He's the best, by far, he's made sure of it. That's why a year after the inception job he and Eames worked together more often than not. In the realm of dreamshare, they had their reputation, even with the whole Fisher-Morrow fiasco under wraps.

But when you're the best, it damn well means that others won't be. Other people in this business can be caught when they're not as meticulous at getting out of trouble as Arthur is. Those ones tend to be the squealers.

So even though Arthur locks checks his lock ten times and stares out the window of his motel room in the middle of nowhere Missouri for a good fifteen minutes, he's a bit startled when a heavy blow comes at the door when he's checking his laptop.

He has his Glock off the safety and trained at the door before he can even blink. His muscles are wound tight, still like a predatory cat ready to pounce upon its prey.

When the second blow comes, it's an elbow through the thin door and Arthur takes no time fighting his way out. He has 17 rounds in the magazine of his gun, but he hopes he doesn't have to resort to using any. He flicks on the safety and spins the gun around his thumb for a little extra bite to his punches, making sure his palm smothers the guard in place so that there's no accidental bullet to the face due to his own stupidity. He darts out quickly, his free arm extended. He snatches the searching hand and twists it straight out toward him, locked in place. With his other arm flexed and bent, Arthur brings down the flat of his elbow onto the delicate bones right above the wrist, gracing the room with the loud snap and muffled gasp from outside.

The arm snaps back when Arthur lets it go. There's whimpering on the other side of the door and multiple voices hissing at each other. From the voices, Arthur counts at most five of them. He's already at least slowed down grunt number one. There's a faint "fucker broke my arm!" which he can't help but smirk at.

"What can I help you boys with?" His voice is steady, but his eyes can't help but wander over to his phone thrown on the table a good ways away. Someone should know, just in case...

"Oh Arthur," a gravelly voice coos, and a shiver drips down his spine at the utterance of his name. "You've made an important man _very _angry."

His stance shifts from an offensive position to a defensive one, just waiting for the next blow. Pissing them off even more doesn't look like it's going to make it any easier for himself. So he could have smacked the back of his head for the next word that comes out, but he was never really known for giving much of a snarky monologue anyway.

"Sorry." He gives a sad attempt of a shrug and says it like he doesn't mean it. Probably because he doesn't. They can tell.

"_Get him_!"

There's a roar and the whole door flies off its hinges. So much for being discreet. Two bulky men shoulder their way through the frame of the door, flanking him on each side. And here he was thinking he was going to have a relaxing three days before the next job. Hopefully he wasn't going to be getting any broken bones he has to treat while working point.

He lashes out, silently and with deadly intent.

Darting to his left, he smashes his heel onto the burly guy's toes, tucks a fist into his gut, and swings his elbow to catch the side of the temple, effectively stunning Thug Number Two without a scratch. He's not so efficient with Thug Number Three, who had moved in with a kick to the back of his knee and rendered Arthur to the floor. A punch followed not soon after, but Arthur managed to roll to the side to avoid the man staggering from the continued momentum of his haymaker. Springing up from his crouch, he lands a couple successive jabs to his opponent's side, cracking a rib or two with his gunned hand.

When Thug Number Three flinches, he doesn't have enough time to block the heel slamming into his knee from the side, knocking him down with a shocked grunt of pain. Arthur barely has time to catch his breath to steady himself before he's tackled from behind, newly dubbed Thug Number Four. He catches the corner of the mattress with his shoulder on his way down, one armed pinned to his body thanks to the clamp-like arms circling his middle. They land with a solid thump face down on the carpet, _probably a lot less expensive than the carpet Saito was thinking about when he pointed out the crucial flaw in that ever fateful extraction plan _he thinks dreamily, as he's momentarily stunned from being thrown to the ground. A thunderous blow to his ribs from the back wakes Arthur up and nearly instantaneously spurs him into action. He bucks back, trying to kick himself some wiggle room, grateful for any space created to get any better angle for punching Mr. Stereotypical gangster bodyguard right in the head with his gun. They switch off blows, both struggling to land solid hits from all the squirming around on the floor, neither men daring to make it easy for the other. Arthur gets a few good gun-assisted punches to the unlucky guy's ear, sure to have his head ringing. The beating on his back and side weaken as if on cue, the constant stream of unsteady blows to the head enough to briefly paralyze.

They're comparable to militarized projections with their ferocity, minus the important fact that they aren't projections. He's on the ground with one more active man (Thug Number Five, Arthur checks off on his mental list), his odds aren't looking good. He slips his arm free and switches his gun back around its regular position, stabilizing himself on the floor with his elbows for a more accurate shot.

"You're a dead man, Arthur."

He's met the barrel of a gun from across the room, as he expected. But Arthur hesitates, his silencer still stashed away in his suitcase. Thug Number Five steps forward with a lilt in his smile, sensing Arthur's hesitation. The stare they have locked on each other doesn't waver.

"Who are you working for?" Arthur asks as steady as he can manage, slightly winded and a little more wary.

The man stalks forward, a grim smirk on his face. He crouches down a few feet away from Arthur's unfortunate prostrate position, a man still tangled around his midsection slowly coming to and steadily decreasing his chance of escape with each passing second.

The man before him is a gaunt faced but able bodied young man, the smile twisting on his mouth not reaching his eyes. He blinks once and cocks his head.

"I'm not hired for this one. I volunteered." There's such glee in these words that Arthur has to repress a shudder.

_Sigh_. Why doesn't he like the sound of that?

But... this boy sounds deadly, and his gun doesn't have a silencer on it, so if his threat is authentic like Arthur thinks it is, they must be certain that no one is around to hear this. They must have bought out the motel if they don't think anyone is here to get them in trouble.

Shooting to incapacitate, he clips the young man in the bicep with his initial shot, and then with a sudden snap and gurgle of red, Arthur gets the boy in the collarbone. He tries to scramble free with the sudden commotion, but the boy recovers quicker than Arthur expected. He's met with the cool, hard, familiar touch of the gun barrel pressing against the crown of his head before he can shimmy free. He stills completely, knowing when he's been beat. Had he been more prepared, he could've taken out all five guys. But now, he doesn't think he can twist out of the hold around his waist and get a good shot before being fatally wounded in his his current position.

"Drop the gun, Arthur." The command hangs in the air but the Point Man is less compliant with being stripped of his last defense. He closes his eyes and mouths over the shape of a swear.

His head is yanked up by a fist in his hair, and now the gun's being aimed straight at his left eye. His scalp prickles uncomfortably.

"I said. Drop. The gun. You don't want that information swimming in your head to get blown to bits, do you?"

Arthur's tries to hide his wince at the irony not lost on him. All his precious graphs and lists and research, stored in the left side of the brain, gone. The right side, with its lack of analytic ability, already considered a shriveled up piece of unused brain matter, according to some in the business, having got around through jobs whenever Eames mentioned it.

He drops the gun, watching the boy smile.

The gun draws back and the wavery expression is replaced with an ugly sneer, the anger boiling in there verging on the moment of overflowing that it ages Thug Number Five by ten years and suddenly he looks like he's not so new to this kind of situation anymore. "I promised I wouldn't kill you, but this is for my father."

_Ah, 'Vengeful Son,' _Arthur thinks, _not 'Thug Number Five'_ the ever running list in his head registers for categorical sake before the punch hits him in the side of the head and he's out like a light.


	2. Chapter 2

It's Halloween in America, so this can be a slightly creepy slightly angsty holiday read

**Warning: general bad stuff**

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When Arthur comes to, the first thing he mentally checks for is the weight of his die in the pocket sewed to the inside of his vest. It's still there. He can't feel his phone in his pant pocket even though he remembered taking the opportunity of snatching it when those goons were breaking through the door. This memory has Arthur snapping to full alertness.

Shit. He was kidnapped.

Only then does it finally register that he's zip-tied to a chair in the middle of what looks like an abandoned, dilapidated barn. This doesn't look good. Arthur's eyes dart around, looking for an escape route while he tests the ties around his wrists and ankles. But his brain is working at a snail's pace (for him) and the ties are already biting into the thin flesh... wait, around his palms? Arthur looks over his shoulder to see, yep, the back of his hands glued together and palms facing out with the zip-tie cutting right into the crease where he cradles his gun. That's going to be a bitch when it's healing if he tries to struggle free. It's obvious that these guys aren't looking to make this easy on him.

He's accounting for all his bruises on his knee, side, and head when a door slams open behind him, the loud noise making his temples throb in protest.

"Do you want to know who sold you out?" booms a familiar voice, filling the void in the empty, creaking barn.

Arthur keeps his mouth shut when he hears the padding of feet on dirt come closer.

"It's okay if I tell you, you can't hold too much of a grudge on him. After all, he's already dead." The boyish-looking man from earlier stops a few feet away from Arthur and for his credit, he doesn't try to jump from his seat and throttle the guy right there. He sits stock still, staring blankly ahead, but this only seems to infuriate his company.

The breath is ripped out of Arthur's chest when he's flung back, the stability of the front legs lost, and he's strapped down with his hands nearly touching the ground. It's like that time Eames tipped him off balance when he was leaning in his chair, but the whole tipping part is backwards and there is no solid floor at his feet to catch him. Being yanked back in his seat nearly be thrown to the ground was a sensation that sped up Arthur's heart rate a little more than he'd like to admit. The sullen face twinkles darkly above him from upside down, his grip strong on the back of the chair pressing into Arthur's shoulder blades.

"He was the extractor for a job where my father was your _mark_." He hisses out the last word and punctuates it by spitting on the man beneath him.

Arthur hides his shudder from showing when the viscous glob rolls off his cheek. He stares up at the young man above him and runs through the files in his head trying to place where he's seen this insane-eyed, boy-ish faced, fit bodied son of a mark for a job. Who has a New York accent and could quite possibly be of Eastern European roots. Then it clicks.

"You're Emilio," Arthur addresses, deadpanned. "I remember researching you. Attending private school until you dropped off the grid the year before you graduated, then magically reappearing under the alias Daniel Russo at Harvard Law a few years later. Learning how to keep daddy's henchmen from being put in jail, I found out." Correct in this recall, the thirty-two year old son of a drug lord widened his eyes in shock, but he quickly masks his surprise.

"You are good at your job," Emilio admits with a glare.

"The best," Arthur corrects.

That earns him a swift punch to the face and his eye is already throbbing when Emilio draws back his fist. Maybe he deserved that one. Provoking his could be murderer shouldn't be Arthur's plan of attack, but the more flustered he can make his enemy, the more likely the other man will be prone to making a mistake. That's all Arthur can hope for.

Emilio draws himself back and matches Arthur's steady gaze. "Then you must know what I invested my time in after Harvard?"

Damn. It can't be helped, they both know.

"Dreamshare." But where Emilio went from there, Arthur had no clue. All information he tried to dig up about the son had come up with false leads.

"It's where I get my paycheck now." The man across from him is smug at the admission.

So he knows. Emilio knows everything there is to know about dreaming. Tied to a chair and no secrets up his sleeve, Arthur is not in a good position. He schools his face, not hinting at the millions of thoughts racing through his head.

"What's your job?" he asks.

There's a small pause, then, "Point."

"Ah." _Interesting. _"Are you jealous?"

The man's eye twitches minutely. "We work for a different market, it's hard to compare."

_Liar._ "So what happened to your dad that made you snap?"

This time, his words are strung a bit tighter. "He was killed."

"He was the head honcho of a major drug cartel, does this surprise you?"

Arthur can tell that his words are getting to Emilio, but the enraged son is reigning in his frustrations with a self-control that Arthur had not given him credit for. The chair he's strapped to is thrown back into place to its upright position and his possible concussion takes a second to catch up with it, his head spinning.

When Emilio speaks, Arthur can tell that the man is standing directly in front of him now. "And I know you tapped into private conversations. That information that you have, you stole it! No one was supposed to know, and now my father is dead because of what you did!"

So he's keeping the topic of the information a secret, most likely because his lackeys are in the room with them. Great, more people to deal with. His getaway scheme is certainly not holding back on its level of difficulty.

_Be as obnoxious as you can be to make him mess up_, Arthur screams in his head, eyeing the switchblade that in suddenly glinting in Emilio's hand. How can he piss this guy off? He seems dead set on killing Arthur no matter what, not nearly being thrown off his game enough to be deterred from his ultimate goal.

The serrated knife attachment flicks out of the switchblade and Arthur's mouth opens before he can even think through what is spilling out of him. The only thing on his mind is to act annoying and as much like Eames as possible. If anything, he can taunt the man into deciding to torture him instead. Not a glamorous option, but if he's being tortured, then he'll still be alive.

"Darling, we both know your dad was a bastard who deserved what he got," Arthur shrugs. Wait… Had he thrown a 'darling' in there when he was mimicking Eames? That wasn't supposed to come out.

But 'darling' or not, Emilio still halted his prowling advance. "What did you say?" the question is heavy with the weight of a growl, its owner fully aware of what was said.

"Don't insult us both by playing dumb, you did go to Harvard, _Daniel_. He had one of the largest drug rings in North America, killed his brother to keep the profits for himself, and was letting hundreds of people die for him every year. He even took you out of private school when he found out you were gay so he could 'straighten you out'. Face it Emilio, he's right where he belongs: six feet underground."

A strangled shriek alerts Arthur to a taunting well done, but he can barely revel in his accomplishment before his jaw is being gripped by a claw. Emilio's wild face is inches from his own and his eyes are as sharp as the knife he's wielding.

"How _dare_ you speak of him that way." The short tether the man was hanging on by has most certainly snapped, and the way he's carrying himself screams danger. "He _fixed_ me. He made me who I am. I loved him! And _you _got inside his head to steal what was ours!"

Arthur stiffens when the blade is skimming down his throat, making sure he doesn't swallow when it passes over his adam's apple. The pointed edge rests in the dip his collarbone. Flickering his eyes down to Emilio's own collarbone has his stomach churning with the mixed feeling of pride and dread. The man's arm and torso are already bandaged up from the bullets that they took from Arthur's Glock. Glad that he at least got a couple shots in, worried what it might mean for him. This guy seemed to have a messed up 'eye for an eye' view on life, if killing the whole team who extracted an idea from his father could be used as an example.

"Shh, it's okay," Emilio whispers in his ear when the knife continues on its path down Arthur's chest once again.

It's not pressing hard enough to pierce the skin, but the presence of a knife near his body at all makes the Point Man a little uncomfortable. One wrong move here and he's dead; there's no waking up in the level above. The hand gripping the sides of his face are squeezing tighter and Arthur glares heatedly into the black eyes boring back at him.

The knife stops right over the hidden pocket in his vest and suddenly Arthur can't breathe. A gentle caress replaces the hard hand at his jaw and he flinches away from the touch, trying to make it seem that his squeamishness was because of the cheek stroking, not the knife pointing to his die through his clothes. He has to play this cool and hope that it was just a fluke where the blade ended up.

"Oh Arthur," the drug lord in training sighed, the name rolling off his tongue like a purr and sending a lead weight of anxiousness down into the pit of Arthur's stomach. Lips are brushing against the shell of his ear when the lowered voice hisses again. "You don't have to play dumb," Emilio recycles the insult thrown at him earlier and leans back with the first genuine happy smile he's given tonight, positively gleeful and frightening. He fists a hand in Arthur's mussed hair and yanks, hard. "The man who sold you out already told me where you hide your totem."

He struggles briefly when the switchblade flashes and tears a hole into his new charcoal grey Rag & Bone vest - simultaneously ripping out a whimper of grief from the suited for all occasions Point Man at the loss - but he's quickly detained by strong hands locking him down on both shoulders, effectively keeping him begrudgingly immobile. It doesn't stop Arthur from grunting and twisting every which way to make it difficult for the men to take his totem, even if it is just inevitable.

"Stop your squirming!"

A heavy blow to the stomach has reduced Arthur from a struggling hostage to a doubled-over marionette with its strings cut, gasping for breath. The most he can manage when a hand slips in the hole of his vest to retrieve his die is to wheeze out a not so threatening "fuck you."

The chorus of laughter surrounding him makes Arthur burn with humiliated fury. He can't believe he's actually caught up in this. Is this really happening? How did he let it get to this point? He was always supposed to be able to get away... His invincibility was short-lived and a dream in itself, really. He and Eames had clawed their way up to the top, it only made sense that someone was going to oppose that. But the notion that he can't slip out of this one as well is absolutely absurd. What makes this criminal any different than another criminal?

Even when Emilio holds up Arthur's red die to the single light fixture glaring above their heads, beating down accusingly on them, Arthur can barely believe it.

"Don't you dare," he chokes, but his warning is ignored. _Oh god, no._

"So this is the legendary Point Man's totem..." The tiny cube is being examined as if it was some lost treasure. Maybe in his jilted, revenge-driven mind, it is. Arthur lurches forward in his chair, snarling, but the hands hold him fast and he sits back, muscles quivering in anger. _That's his die, and another person is has it._

"Give it back!" He barks, unable to keep it from exploding within him. He's played cool and aloof for as long as he could, but making it difficult for this evil man in order to buy himself more time has pushed him as far as he was willing to go. Emilio is holding his fucking totem_._

Emilio cocks his head and his mock-pitying expression has Arthur dying to rip this man's face clean off. "You know, for as complicated as you make yourself, your totem is overwhelmingly mundane."

The taunt is meant to anger him and he can't help but get angry. This sick bastard has everything he needs to make Arthur's life a confusing hellhole, and no, he's not alright with that. He doesn't want to think about how many times he's been lectured on how he should never ever let someone have his totem. In the Army, by Dom, by Mal, and then by Dom again after his wife's death. By this time in his life, it should almost be embarrassing. The punch to his gut had worn off but still Arthur finds it hard to breathe like there's a balloon growing ever larger in his chest. This isn't right, this _can't be happening_. He doesn't want to lose his mind.

He watches with wide eyes as Emilio spins the die in his hand, cataloging each of the six sides with equal fascination. With every stroke over an imperfection on the little red cube, Arthur feels his insides twisting up further, an impending fear of something bad hovering over him thick and freezing and final like an avalanche. He can't avoid this ominous _thing _that he knows has the ability to end him. Is this what hopelessness feels like? He hasn't felt this way on any job before this, even when he thought he could drop dead right then and there.

But as he stares in horror when his die is rolled on the ground at his feet, the three white dots like a beacon calling out to everyone in the room, he knows he hasn't felt this before because he has never been this scared in his life.

Not ever.

"Three, hm?"

Arthur closes his eyes.

"So it's a weighted die."

Emilio is first to break through the silence, overhanging the four of them with baited breath. He seems to contemplate the totem lying in the dirt for a moment, before picking it up and rolling it again. Three again. Same as it would always be in the real world. And now in his dreams, it would seem. He needs to make sure he can retain his grasp on this reality or else he could wind up like Mal. If he does, there's no way in telling if in a few days he's begging someone to kill him so he could get back to the waking world when he's not asleep. Is that their plan? Make him ask for his own death? He swears not to give them that honor.

"Wouldn't take you as a gambling man, my friend."

Arthur struggles to suck in air, shaking from a mixture of fury and frustration, stomping down on his fear before it rears its ugly head and makes him a pitiful, whimpering fool. He licks his chapped lips.

"When I know my odds," he forces out, his voice only wavering the slightest bit.

Emilio is amused by the response, throwing up the die and catching it in the same hand, one eyebrow quirked. "And what would you say your odds of getting out of this are?" This stirs up quiet laughter from the two thugs restraining him, earning them both a murderous glare from their captive.

The man holds the totem - though, not Arthur's anymore, he can never use that same one again - in the flat of his hand, right in front of the Point Man for him to snatch up if he had use of his numb, bloody hands. They twitch uselessly behind him and the wince that flashes over Arthur's face is gone before it was noticed. This isn't a good position to be in. He says as much.

"Probably not good ones," he admits, emotions blank and voice even.

Emilio's young face is just as somber when he replies, all previous emotions slipping off him like water and leaving just a frightening mold of a man, filled with nothing but deep seated rage and insanity. "No. You're absolutely right. They aren't very good odds."

When he picks up the die and walks away, Arthur can just register the cannula being slipped into the inside of his elbow as the two thugs descend upon him with unrelenting kicks and punches.

* * *

Eames has his Heckler & Koch cocked and ready, aimed right between the motel owner's eyes. This is where Arthur told him he was staying and so far, he found one ransacked room and no other guests.

"Listen, mate, this is looking awfully suspicious, so either you're going to tell me what happened to the man who was checked in here or your brains are going to be the new wallpaper for your office."

"I-I'm sorry!" the portly man squeaks out, his hands raised and quivering with fright. "I don't know what happened to your friend!"

The stupidity of some people is too much sometimes. As if he expected this lowly motel owner with sweat stains in his clothes, a receding hairline, and no money to his name - until very recently, it seems, when Eames spies the brand new white-gold Rolex shining on the guy's wrist - has anything to do with planned kidnapping of a professional thief.

"Please," he scoffs at the idea, enjoying himself as he watches the man fidget under the barrel of his gun. "I know you don't know where they took him, but who bought you out?"

The man just whimpers.

"Who was it!" He's yelling and pressing his gun right between the perspiring motel owner's eyes, not wanting to waste another minute of his time down here with this buffoon.

"H-he came in four nights ago!" The blubbering man stammers out. His name is Chris, Eames notes by the name tag pinned to his shirt, but he doesn't look like one. "He g-gave me ten thousand bucks to not have any new customers other than the guy in room 27, and to steer clear the next night. I don't know what happened, man, I couldn't say no to that kind of money! You have to u-understand!" He sounds nervous even when asking for forgiveness.

Of course Eames understands greed and the temptation of money. He is a thief with a taste for fine art and secrets after all. But selling out a man's life for money is not okay in his book. And this guy has already royally pissed him off by having that man who he sold out be Arthur.

"Tell me what happened," he says slowly, gun still raised, "from the beginning."

Chris' eyes dart left and right before he answers, as if trying to find a way out, not knowing that a man with Eames' experience would ever let a way out ever become an issue. Predictably, Chris doesn't find his chance of escape, so he takes a deep breath as if he's about to recite a lengthy story.

"T-that guy, your friend, came in round five days ago, looking to stay for two weeks. He was dressed pretty fancy, like you said, um, brown hair, slicked back—"

"Okay, yes, that's him! What else?" Eames doesn't need a picture of the Point Man drawn out for him; he knows what most people look like with a few minutes of looking at them. He probably could draw Chris perfectly already, and he's barely known the guy for five minutes. He's always been good at remembering what people look like. And ever since working with Arthur on a regular basis, he's become very acquainted with how the slim, tailored, dimpled man looked. Eames could get him down to the short fingernails that Arthur picked out when he was stressed and thought no one was watching; it was the personality that he couldn't master.

He shakes his head of the distracting thoughts of the missing man, and comes to mid explanation. "Wait, come again?"

Chris looks mildly peeved at being asked to repeat himself, but he's not exactly in a position to do anything about it. "Some guy came in a day after I gave your friend his room. He, I dunno, he was tall. A big guy, not as big as you though," he adds, as if complimenting the man with a gun to his head would make Eames reconsider. It doesn't. "He said, uh… he said that he needed my place for the next night and dropped a bag full of money right on my desk, saying he'd pay me twice that afterward. I haven't seen him though…"

Eames knows this guy will come back. With a trail like this you need to be positive the people you buy off aren't going to say anything. How he feels about the possibility of Arthur's captors coming back to the motel is split right down the middle. If this man comes back, Eames can be here ready to bury a bullet right in the guy's throat. On the other hand, when he comes back, it means for whatever reasons they took Arthur for, the deed is done. He can't wait here to let it come to that. He's got to find Arthur before he knows it's too late.

"Don't worry, he'll be back to give you your money," Eames spits, clearly disgusted by how this situation was handled. "Did he say anything? Anything at all that could be helpful?"

Chris squints his eyes and looks like he's thinking really hard. Eames has to calm himself down before he erupts and unloads round upon round on this whimpery, pathetic excuse of a man.

"He said… he said that it was real important that, I um. Not tell anybu-hu-dy…" Chris hiccups when his eyes overflow with tears and he's sobbing for his life from two men in one week who have threatened him in his own motel.

From the second Eames had entered the establishment, he should've used his ability to read people and know that this interrogation was going to get him nowhere. He swipes the keycard and phone on the counter and pockets it.

"You're a sorry sod, mate, I'm sorry you endangered my friend, or else I wouldn't have to do this."

"Wha— AHH!"

Eames grabs a fistful of Halloween candy from the bowl on the counter as he walks out the door, satisfied that the cops won't be coming for him since he already took the time to cut off the landline and steal the guy's cellphone. He leaves a whimpering Chris to tend to the bullet wound in his hand by himself.


	3. Chapter 3

This is a slower chapter, but very necessary! Thank you to everyone who's commented/favorited/alerted, this is all was inspired by a prompt and I'm excited to see where it ends up with you guys. Anyway, Enjoy!

**Warning: description of fighting, language**

* * *

The keycard Eames snagged off the counter proved pointless since the door to Arthur's room was already missing a large chunk in the middle and hanging off its hinges. It's not a good start to Eames' search. He pockets the plastic and pushes in through the door frame, gun drawn.

The lights are switched off but the air is still humming from the excitement that occurred a couple days earlier. With the place, abandoned Eames flicks on the lights and stashes his gun in the waist of his pants. A weak yellow glow settles on the disturbed scene and honestly, there isn't much to go on.

He starts from the very beginning.

Stepping back out onto the balcony, Eames rights the door and scrutinizes the gaping hole in the wood. He keeps it steady by the doorknob in one hand, and fits his other arm through the gap. He can't fit past the bulge of his bicep, so either the man smashing through doors has no arm muscles, or Arthur was able to incapacitate one his assailants before he could even breach the threshold of his room.

A surge of pride fills up Eames' chest when he thinks about it. That's his Point Man; not giving up without one hell of a fight. He just hopes that Arthur hadn't pulled out all the stops for this one.

He withdraws his hand and shoves the door aside, sweeping his gaze over anything to clue him in on what happened once the kidnappers managed to barge their way inside. He can't tell how many people were here to nab Arthur, but there are three separate patches where the shaggy rust colored carpet imported straight from the Seventies looks like a vague body print of someone crumpled on the floor, so at least three people were here that night then. The thought of making sure he'll save two bullets for each man, one for each lung so they can drown in their own blood, crosses a dark part of Eames' brain. Thoughts like those are what he relied on when he was a younger, cold-blooded man, but now he can't help but full-heartedly agree, even with his life as a conman and art thief behind him. All he knows is that these people deserve to suffer any pain that Eames dishes out at them.

He approaches the kicked up carpet patch that is closest to the door, and Eames counts his lucky stars that this hideous carpet is here to help string a loose story together of what had happened. From his angle, it looks like two sets of footprints versus one (Arthur's) and the first one to go down, if the body print right next to it suggests anything, is the one to his right, so Arthur's left. After the first is knocked out, there's another body print and a whole bunch of running around that doesn't make much sense, but leads him over to the bed corner where the covers are slipping off.

Eames tucks the rumpled covers back perfectly like how Arthur would have had them and rips the fabric back out again, to test how hard someone would need to go down to take the bedspread with them. He had given the sheets a pretty good tug. So whoever hit the bed on their way down to meeting the floor unceremoniously, it didn't have a smooth landing.

From here, the running around comes to a stop and a large indent at the foot of the bed has Eames guessing that this here was the final confrontation. Did Arthur get taken out at this spot? It would seem so, except... There are two smaller dips in the carpet about a foot apart right next to the mess of upturned carpet, facing right at the open door. Eames crouches and fits his elbows perfectly in the identical dents. Arthur was steadying for a shot. Keeping low and spinning on his heel, Eames scans his eyes over the ground and... there! He had nearly missed it in the color of the fuzzy carpet fibers, but a few feet away, right in Arthur's line of shot, is splattered blood. Not enough blood on the ground to indicate a dead man, but a significant amount nonetheless.

That's the extent of the damage though. Arthur snuck in one last shot before succumbing - certainly not willingly - to the men here to take him. After this there are only hints of footsteps throughout the room since the weight of a man walking isn't enough to leave a lasting impression on the carpet.

Eames straightens, piecing together a patchwork video of what could have taken place here. He doesn't like it, no matter how it plays out, because no matter how many times he rewrites it, he's still short one Point Man and this little scrap doesn't tell him anything other than Arthur was still captured even after putting up a hell of a fight.

"_Bugger_," Eames hisses, combing his fingers through his gelled back hair and scanning the rest of the room for any clues.

He's almost bowled over when he sees Point Man's laptop sitting open and blank on the miniscule desk in the corner of the room. Had they really just left it there? But when he approaches the piece of machinery, he can see that it wasn't even touched even though it was sitting in plain view. The edge of the computer is parallel to the table's edge with the wireless mouse perfectly adjacent, just as Arthur would have left it.

They didn't come for information then, Eames swallows nervously. He sort of wishes that they did. He shakes the mouse and the screen flashes to life, asking for the password needed to log on. A dot at the top of the monitor is gleaming red and he wonders why he hadn't noticed it as a pinprick in the darkness before.

The password is actually a series of codes, fifteen screens in total asking for a new word, each one more complicated than the last. If a single symbol is wrong, the sequence resets without telling the wannabe hacker that they were sent back to the beginning. All in all, a very frustrating way to keep out the people who want to discover what Arthur keeps in the laptop that never leaves his side.

Thankfully, Eames already knows the passwords. And he knows how to access the encrypted information once he's passed the first line of security. It still takes him a solid ten minutes to break the encryption so he can try to dig up any clues indicating where the missing man could have been taken.

Some in the business would abhor the amount of trust Arthur put in Eames to let him know all this information, to allow a thief to have access to some of the most juicy and true secrets of the most powerful people around the world. Sure, he could get all this information on an external hard drive and blackmail some of the most lucrative and devious people for anything he wanted. He could sell out Arthur and be able to get away with it. In other dreamers' minds, this sharing of information could mean nothing but trouble for Arthur, and that's only if he got lucky.

But they have known each other since their early days, when they both were representatives for their home countries in Project SOMNACIN. During his stint in the Army, the younger man was rough around the edges, but just as diligent and thorough as the Arthur people knew him to be today. And he was self-sacrificingly loyal if he believed someone was worth it. That trait hadn't withered with age, either. This has come up a few times in their past jobs. Not verbally, and never acknowledged with more than a 'thanks,' but there have been enough times where Arthur has literally taken a bullet for Eames for the Brit not to harbor a growing respect for his teammate. Eames likes Arthur, he's a brilliant Point Man. So, no, he wouldn't sell him out, and Arthur understands this.

What other dreamers don't understand is that Eames knows all of Arthur's passwords because Arthur does plan for everything - especially after the Fischer militarization incident - and he wouldn't leave this stone unturned no matter how gruesome the thought of it could be. They knew that one day, the life of underground crime would catch up with them. Arthur gave Eames access to his computer because he knows that the Forger is absolute shite with technology (when he lives in Mombasa he doesn't have much use for it), and if something were to happen to the Point Man, someone needed to know how to destroy all this incriminating information.

When Arthur briefed him on this, Eames had asked if Arthur needed anything from him in case it was the Brit was taken hostage or killed first. What he got in return was the impassive man's almost concealed twitch of a smile and "I'm Point; it's my job to know where people are and what they're doing. I'd find you, Mr. Eames, you don't need to concern yourself with that." So far, he's been true to his word.

Hopefully Eames can return the sentiment. He knows he doesn't have much time. Beads of sweat continue to dampen the collar of his shirt more each second if he thinks about it. Every minute wasted here is a minute that he could actively be looking for Arthur. He knows he can't do anything with nothing to go on, but still. Sitting around waiting for the computer to boot up completely has him itching for his gun.

He settles for his totem instead and runs the pad of his thumb over the side grooves of the poker chip, heavy and familiar in his hand.

Finally, the loading screen disappears and folders start popping up on the desktop, the encryption finally cracked open. A window comes up and Eames finds himself looking at his moving reflection, a digitized copy of the man sitting in the crime scene motel room, looking haggard and pale.

His eyes widen and the seamless video does the same. Oh.

Lips twitching, Eames shakes his head in awed disbelief. He was being recorded. The laptop had been taping everything in hour segments since exactly four nights ago and stashing them in a desktop file labeled 'break in Oct 27.' His gut stirs a little with worry, but he can't deny the awe directed at Arthur's never ending ability to plan. _Clever boy._

Choking on a strangled sound that is a mix of a laugh and a groan, he pulls himself together before clicking on the very first video clip that started at 9:23 pm, an image of Arthur looking concerned and taking up the majority of the screen as the preview.

Eames holds his breath and clicks the icon, perching himself on the edge of the small wooden chair.

When it starts, his chest feels like it's about to burst. First it cuts to Arthur sitting in front of the computer, his brow creased in urgent determination as he starts typing like mad, probably wiping all important files (not much of a loss, he stores all research he's ever collected on a hard drive back at his apartment in Paris anyway) and messing with the software so he could log off and keep the camera going. Three piece suit on (sans the jacket) and hair slicked back, one would have never guessed that this was supposed to be Arthur's week off. It's so familiar that it hurts. With all those straight lines and intense, yet detached focus, it's too much like that look he gets when they're about to fight their way through a mob of rabid projections set on ripping them limb by limb. Granted, more commonly than not there's a stoic expression gracing Arthur's face, but Eames' imagination was always a bit dark and paranoid.

Squeezing his eyes shut, his brain betrays him when it wonders if this will be the last time he'll see that raw determination ever again. He's not allowed to think like that.

On the screen, Arthur forgets about his computer rather quickly and Eames has to wonder if Arthur programmed hotkeys for these detailed instructions specifically for this purpose. He also wonders if Arthur ever thought he would actually have to use them.

He snatches up his Glock and aims for the door, posture wound up tight like a coil. Where he had looked shaken up a second ago, that Arthur was replaced by an aloof and professional criminal.

There's a heavy thump on the door, the force upon the cheap wood causing it to split, an elbow breaking through. Eames spares a passing glance over his shoulder to see the damage in real life. But he's glued back to the computer when Arthur twirls his gun around in his hand and sprints forward, taking no time in grabbing the thug's arm and breaking the wrist bones with a clean downward strike with his elbow. The arm retreats like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Muffled voices that aren't picked up by the speakers are overshadowed when Arthur speaks up, unwavering and a little bit smug, "What can I help you boys with?"

"Oh Arthur," someone from the other side of the door coos and Eames doesn't suppress the nervous feeling he gets at the mention of the name. "You've made an important man _very _angry."

_Shite_.

But Arthur shrugs and Eames swears that the young man is taking after him whether he likes it or not. "Sorry." When (if) he finds Arthur, he's never going to let the other live this down.

The next scene unfolds with a sense of dread, because no matter what happens, Eames already knows how this story is going to end. But in case Arthur left him something to go off of with this video, he keeps watching.

"_Get him_!"

Suddenly people are yelling and the door is smashed in, two lumbering men emerging into the dimly lit room. There's two more in the shadows, but the computer can't pick them up. Eames analyzes the faces he can see, not recognizing either before committing both to memory. He's going to need to know who he's going to make suffer when all of this is said and done.

They flank Arthur to his left and right, and then the fight begins.

Starting with his left as Eames deduced, Arthur parries with a quick succession of blows meant to distract, then he drops the guy like a bag of bricks with one unrelenting blow to the unguarded temple. This other side of the Point Man doesn't surface often, and not many expect Arthur to be capable of defending himself in a fistfight, but it was the Army that came first in his life, dreamsharing and researching followed after.

As he's finishing up the first thug, the larger of the two lashes out with a mean kick to the back of Arthur's leg, effectively toppling him to the ground. A punch is thrown and missed, Arthur effortlessly rolling out of the line of fire, hopping back up on his feet and raining jabs and hooks into the guy's ribs. Blood starts beading through the unidentified man's white button-up shirt and it's then that Eames realizes that Arthur's prized Glock was being used as makeshift brass knuckles.  
When the grunt is distracted, Arthur takes the opportunity to return the gift of a foot being slammed to the knee; only this time, he aims for the side and the crack that resonates in the room only gets covered up by the painful gasps that come after. This guy falls instantly, and he doesn't look like he's getting up.

Eames sees it before Arthur does, as a bald man runs into the room and tackles Arthur from behind when he is caught unaware, still panting from the effort needed to take the second one out. The sheets are pulled from their made bed here then, as Arthur grunts and is barreled into it, landing on the ground with his attacker still wrapped around his middle.

From this point, Eames can't see the hold that Arthur is trying to wiggle out of, but he can hear the panting of exertion and the thudding of punches being exchanged.

What he can see though, is one last young looking man emerging from the darkness of outside and into the camera's line of sight. And Eames the ex-conman knows exactly who it is.

So Emmanuele "Emilio" Macellaio was the one who kidnapped Arthur - he says kidnapped partially because all of Arthur's things are still here and partially because he can't imagine otherwise. But he can't decide if this is a fortunate revelation.

Yes, now he knows where the direction to head in thanks to Arthur's quick thinking, but Eames has come in contact with this unstable man a handful of times in his early days in the grittier dreamshare world. Unlike Eames, Emilio planned on keeping his ties to his seedy background. But like Arthur, he's a Point Man; one with a substantial résumé at that. He's impulsive though, and festered in the darkness under the legacy of his now deceased old man.

Though even with the game he's is playing, the boy's father had more power than any of the clients who hired Emilio anyway, allowing the drug lord's son to bask in the power of his surname without worry of the dangers that dreamshare held, especially with the ruthless people he associated himself with. But Eames supposes Emilio never had to worry about the dark side of dreaming, not when he's the cheque signer for a majority of the hit men and lackeys brought in to track down other dreamers.

He has a short fuse, and from what Arthur has told him, a father who he had helped extract vital information from. Eames hadn't mentioned that he knew the bordering psychopathic son, but he thinks if he mentioned it, he couldn't have stopped this from happening. Emilio has a way of getting what he wants, without worrying about the consequences. There rarely are consequences for a son of a man who holds a good part of the criminal world in his greedy fist.

So Eames has a direction, but a much bleaker outlook on the situation. The contents in Eames' stomach refuse to settle. He needs to find Arthur, and fast.

Everyone in the recording freezes, Arthur he can't see, but Emilio is still as stone with his gun raised, hatred burning in his eyes. The struggling on the floor has ceased its scuffling noises. He remembers the indents in the carpet and he can clearly imagine Arthur staring Emilio dead in the eye, gun cocked and ready to strike.

Even with the image slightly distorted from the limited information that the computer camera could pick up, the look Emilio is sporting screams unabashed fury and a smidge of crazy.

"You're a dead man, Arthur," he growls, taking a measured step forward. He must know what Arthur is capable of. He wouldn't have been here himself if he didn't. Dangerous people's sons all had this in common, thinking it was a frightening intimidation technique that they could instill in their prey by showing up in person. It doesn't make much sense to Eames; one opponent is like any other unless proven otherwise. Boys like Emilio grow up thinking the world should bow down to them and act accordingly, cowering in fear. Eames doesn't suppose his stoic friend would take the bait.

"Who are you working for?" Arthur sounds as collected as ever.

Emilio crouches to the ground at the foot of the bed and now his head is the only visible moving object in the scene, the rest hidden. The ground out conversation between the two Point Men is still crystal clear. He wishes that it wasn't.

"I'm not hired for this one. I volunteered."

There's a moment of silence, and then two loud cracks ripple through the air and Emilio recoils, face twisted up in pain. He's cradling his arm and hunched over, the anger in his eyes seething with almost tangible heat. His recovery is fluid and even through the pain he's crouching again and hissing at Arthur, who is still on the ground.

"Drop the gun, Arthur."

He pulls up the other man by the hair and Arthur's familiar profile is scrunched in pain. The muzzle of the gun is poking in his left eye, but he doesn't move, which infuriated Emilio.

"I said. Drop. The gun. You don't want that information swimming in your head to get blown to bits, do you?"

Eyes closing in begrudged acceptance of his fate, Arthur stills and supposedly drops his gun as told.

Triumph floods Emilio's face when the man subdues beneath him. He smiles darkly. "I promised I wouldn't kill you here, but this is for my father."

He whacks Arthur in the side of the head with the butt of the gun, the undignified slump Arthur falls with indicating his state of awareness. He's out cold.

When Emilio stares down at his handiwork, a predatory pleasure of the hunt radiating from him, Eames sits back in his chair, for once at a loss for words.

Immobile with unease, Eames watches the rest of the clip, wanting nothing more than to snap it shut and find the bastard to rip him a new one. But he forces himself to sit through the rest, needing to make sure that he sucks every bit of helpful information out of this.

Emilio stands and saunters around the room, a cocky sway to his step that wasn't there when he wasn't sure if Arthur would still best him. He's slapping his men awake, unfazed by the moaning and whining of his cohorts. The one lackey who was tangled around Arthur when he was thrown to the floor stands shakily, his hand cupping his brow, a thick red mess smattering the front of his shirt. To Eames' horror, the man proceeds to kick Arthur's body, infuriated and embarrassed that he was overcome when he was supposed to have the upper hand. Emilio doesn't comment, and the guy doesn't stop.

After four swift kicks, the man stops but Eames is already looking away, eyes downcast and focused intently on the poker chip clenched in his hand. It's real but he wishes with everything he has and more that it wasn't. This is sickening.

_Oh Arthur, what have you gotten yourself into?_

He listens to more of what was recorded, but he can't bring himself to look. Flipping the weighted red and white chip in his fingers, his eyes scan over the Casino name in light teal Japanese script. He's already committed the round disk to memory years ago, but if he stops looking at it, he'll have to look somewhere else. It's not that the images illuminating the dusty room are particularly gruesome, that Eames can handle. He just could never imagine Arthur being on the receiving end of this type of torment.

"Stop whining and someone patch me up!" Emilio growls at his blubbering henchmen, hired no doubt for their brute strength and not for their sharp intelligence.

Everyone seems to be teetering on what they need to say in order to stay in good graces with the young man. Finally someone pipes up with a wary "Did he get you in the arm and chest?"

Emilio huffs and Eames stares harder down at his token, his jaw aching from clenching so hard. He can't even find solace in the fact that Emilio sounds ticked off that Arthur was still able to do him damage even though he was outmanned five to one. "No. I got grazed in the arm, but the Kevlar got the other one." It'll leave a nasty bruise, especially from that close distance of a shot, but he's certainly not in danger of bleeding out now.

"Richard'll fix you up in the car, sir," a rougher voice adds, still on edge.

Eames can imagine Emilio's teeth grinding, frustrated that this kidnapping isn't going by the book.

"Fine. Get _him,_" he spits at the idea of Arthur, "downstairs. And someone help Markus," he adds as an afterthought, voice lowering in volume until the tap tap tap of his shoes indicate he already left the room and was headed for the car. So much for making sure the job was wrapped up tidily. Any decent Point Man would be the last one gone from a job, but he supposes Emilio is worlds away from decent.

A rush of air enters the room as a collective sigh, everyone less trepid now that the unpredictableness of Emmanuel Macellaio has left the cramped space. "You alright?" one of them mutters to another comrade of his.

"No, fuck! I can't feel my leg!" Ah, it must have been the one who had his knee snapped in the wrong direction.

"Stop whining, you'll live," a gruff voice snarls, the no-nonsense finality to it leaves him with no affronted comments. Fitting for the bald one who started kicking an unconscious Arthur. Eames hates him out of the thugs the most. "Everyone down to the car, now." He's second in command of this little party or acts like it at least.

"Should we take anything?" one asks, quieter, uncertain, probably wishing that they didn't open their mouth to ask at all.

"We need to leave. The less time we're here the better. This is too specific of a place to be doing this shit. I don't want to be caught at a damn motel of all places." _Ironic_, Eames thinks darkly, a scowl etched deeply into his expression. He's going to make sure each and every single one of these mindless baboons pay for going along with Emilio's scheming.

"But we should–"

"No. We're leaving. Now." He says this through the sound of rustling and what sounds like the movement of something heavy. Eames looks back at the screen.

Baldy has Arthur's limp body tossed over his shoulder like he's nothing more than a wet rag. As he hangs there, his limbs knock into each other, making the man look defenseless and so completely out of his beloved control. There's no grace to the way unconscious body moves. Seeing the groomed man so out of sorts is unsettling. One arm is slung around the back of his thighs to keep him in place, draped over Baldy's shoulder.

His tie had managed to come untucked from his grey vest during the scuffles and is now dangling freely. Eames pauses the video as to not miss anything important and stares at the solid red tie wrapped around Arthur's neck. Understated as it is just one solid color, but it's vintage and Yves Saint Laurent and the ever suited man loves both of those things.

Eames had found that little gem when he was rifling through a little store in France, knowing that it was the perfect 'thank you' for being bailed out when a job had gone sour. Again. When he opened the long, thin box, Arthur didn't say anything, but Eames is, if nothing else, a people person. From the flash of dimples and the minuscule widening of the dark eyes, Eames knew that Arthur died a little at the first touch of fine silk under his fingertips.

If he finds Arthur dead in that tie, it'll be the cherry on top of this whole ordeal. He gave that to Arthur because the man had saved his life. And for all the words stored in his vast English vocabulary, he couldn't find the ones to say that he would've been killed while under for a job if it wasn't for Arthur's intervening. The other man wasn't a part of that job. He wasn't in the country.

While keeping tabs on some of the more active and vengeful customers, the Point Man had unearthed an email mentioning a hired hit man by one who felt personally scandalized by the Forger's tricks. He tracked down the assassin in the city Eames had been working in, who was then oblivious to the manhunt that was taking place on his behalf. The hit man was taken care of, and Arthur ended up at Eames' hotel door at two in the morning with knife wounds littering his upper body, some requiring impromptu stitches which Eames insisted he take care of in the bathroom. Arthur's skin was parchment white from the cold and blood loss, but he was alive. Eames was still alive. As a team, that was all that mattered, as long as they come back swinging another day, then they can continue doing the jobs that keep rolling in.

Angry vengeance swept over Eames like a wave crashing down. He's not sickened by the lack of response by Arthur on the screen, he's just downright simmering with hate for these people. Why not kill him if he's what they came for? He doesn't like the plans that Emilio seems to have in store for the Point Man whose skills the kidnapper can only dream of having. Arthur saved his life. If Eames can't do the same, then he shouldn't be a part of this team they've created anyway.

With a raging inferno of Irish outrage, courtesy of his father, festering beneath his hot skin, Eames is ready to go out and find Arthur so that he can be the one who makes sure Arthur doesn't end up face down in a ditch somewhere. And then he'll make Arthur get him a tie. Not that he'd ever wear it, it's the whole acknowledging that Eames was able to keep Arthur from being killed thing that he's worried about.

Fidgeting in his seat, he presses play and forces himself to sit through the rest, hoping that one of these grunts will at least hint at where they headed off to with a dead to the world Arthur with them.

Everyone continues with what they were doing before Eames had stopped everything to lament about the meaning of Arthur's damn tie that made him feel already too late to save him. One guy files out, helping the man sporting a broken leg - Markus - down to the car. Baldy does a sweep over of the room, scanning its context with his beady, deep set eyes. His gaze lands on the computer, and obvious interest sparks on his bloody face. He has a large gash on his hairline, probably a result of Arthur's Glock brass knuckles again. Shifting as to take a step forward, his path is interrupted by another man Eames doesn't recognize, walking into the room with his wrist being held to his body. The idiot who tried to break down the door then.

"We're leaving, remember?" the new guy mocks, knowing that these were Baldy's words just a moment ago.

The interest in the computer is lost and the larger man turns to face the door, Arthur's slack face coming into view. He doesn't look too bad now, nothing out of place bone-wise at least. Honestly, he managed to inflict a lot more damage than each of those meatheads than they were able to bestow upon him. Eames gets the sinking feeling that this won't be the case for long though. Or rather, it probably isn't very true right now.

He shakes his head of the mental images, his traitorous mind only able to think up worse and worse possibilities. Where _is_Arthur right now? The best Eames can hope for is that he's still alive and intact. He's the closest to Arthur, and he hasn't received a ransom yet. That alone starts sending off warning signals, but he tucks those thoughts away.

"Shut up, Alex, you didn't do jack shit. Don't come in here lookin' all smug when all you did was make a hole in the door and get your fuckin' wrist snapped."

Alex looks murderous at the jibe, and Eames isn't sure if it's directed at Arthur or Baldy; though it could understandably be both.

"Don't change the topic. You heard Emilio, we got the guy, so we're leaving. _Now_." The inflection of his words suggests he thought it would be the end of the conversation, but clearly he needs a class on his intimidation skills because Baldy is unfazed.

"You know what he could keep on there? If I could crack it, imagine all that dirt on everyone who matters. This research is legendary. I heard some crazy things have been done with dreamin'. Impossible things. He would've been Point for them, I'm sure of it."

Eames wonders if Baldy knows he's talking about inception. He's saved from fretting over the thought when Alex scoffs, tending to his wrist and having the decency to look peeved. "That's great, but if this guy is as good as you say he is, how are you gonna be the one to crack it? I know you're trying to get into good graces with the family again after the boss' death, but finding out information for Emilio, a _Point Man_, isn't going to help you."

Henchmen drama. How utterly boring.

"It wasn't my goddamn fault that the boss got shot," Baldy grits out, words tight as if he was trying to make himself belief them too. His rigid stance suggests otherwise though. "There was no way I coulda known—"

"Okay, okay, whatever!" Alex waves him off before his eyes widen to the size of saucers, his wrist quickly being pressed back to his chest as if it would protect it from his stupidity. "Look, Emilio's the boss now and if you want your job back I suggest doin' what he says. Which includes not touching anything. We can't get finger prints over everything 'case the owner decides to call the cops."

"It's just the computer."

"Drop it, Coleman. It's probably traceable anyway. We've already stayed here too long and gonna get chewed out because you can't listen to a damn order." His eyes soften with something akin to pity. "It's just this job. Emilio's betting everything on it since his source swore Arthur was the Point used for the boss' extraction. All you need to do is follow his rules. You don't need to end up like that Extractor who spilled the beans on where to find the Point Man. We take him back to the barn—"

_Bingo._

"—let Emilio have his fun, and come back here when everything's settled down to off the motel owner. Arthur's job doesn't start for another two weeks, so no one should be snooping around here. When we clean up, if you do your _job_, maybe Emilio will let you take a stab at the computer. "

The mostly unharmed thug comes up then and says something about hurrying up. Short exchanges are made, nothing important, and then they're all shuffling out the room. The unresponsive Arthur is the last thing Eames is staring at before the room is engulfed in darkness.

He closes the window and leans back in his chair, soaking in the information that actually held value to him. Stuffed into Baldy/Coleman's demotion brooding, was 'the barn' which couldn't be too far from here, if they were going by car, and that they didn't expect Arthur's teammates for another two weeks (well, a week and a half by now). That actually was the plan until conflicts of scheduling arose and they had to move up the date of the extraction. So these guys are pushing forward with old and inaccurate information. That is something Eames can work with.

Shutting down the laptop, Eames picks up the machine, tucking it under his arm with such care Arthur would have been pleased with him. He has a motel owner to apologize to and convince he needs to high tail it out of town before killed by the very people who paid to keep quiet.

_The barn._

Wherever that is, it's where Eames needs to be, because that's where he'll find Arthur.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello everyone! The response for this fic has been wonderful to say the least. So than you everyone for your support! I am obviously a fan of whump so you will see no shortage of that here… but I do love my plots and character development so I find this story will probably longer than I had first anticipated. I'm so sorry for the wait of this chapter, I started writing this to escape the looming depression of finals, and then finals actually came and I had no more time to write. Then winter break got the better of me and I haven't been able to sit down at the computer and focus on writing for a while. Ironically, I'm in India for the month, but I should have more time than I usually do to write. I am very intrigued with where this story is headed, so it will be continued after the little hiccup of no updates :)

As for some of your concerns, do not fret everyone! The torture shall be passed all around and it will hopefully flesh out the further we get into the story. As for relationships, I was planning on keeping this completely a study on the interesting dynamic of Arthur and Eames, because I've watched the movie a couple times again recently and their relationship always strikes me as something important. I will keep it purely platonic on fanfiction, but I do think these two are fascinating halves of a whole, so I'm posting this on archiveofourown as well and I'll see how the story progresses, potentially having diverging paths of where this story ends up.

Anyway, happy reading!

**Warning: language**

* * *

When things become a little too crazy in the real world, it's not out of place to see someone in the dream business dig their hand deep into their pocket to figure out if they truly are awake. Arthur spent a year, five months, and two weeks watching Cobb compulsively fiddle around with Mal's top before the man was finally sent back to his children in the states. He never mentioned it though, understanding why the desperate father constantly needed the conviction that he wasn't stuck in a dream.

Right now, the only good news that Arthur can extrapolate from his totem being stolen is that it means he's not going to die (on purpose) any time soon. But it also suggested that he was going to be subjected to significant amounts of psychological torture.

Anyone who's even allowed in the dreamshare business knows a totem is for one person's eyes only. A totem must be unique and easy to hide so that it is on hand at all times, a comfort to reassure sanity at any given moment the suspicion of a dream starts to creep up.

This is all common knowledge. It is lectured about time and time again, from veterans like Cobb to the eager, wet-under-the-ears students like Ariadne, it is known that if you lose your totem, you're royally screwed. What is equally common knowledge, but never admitted out loud, is the reason why your totem cannot be known by anyone other than the individual who owns it.

If a totem is understood by anybody else, then they have the power to manipulate this object within their own dream to do whatever it is with it they want it to do. They can change the item all together, or make it disappear. They can make a replica of a totem so exact, that the owner can't tell the difference. The secret isn't a secret anymore and the totem then becomes a weapon with immense power. It's a cheap way of going about business, but Arthur can't deny its effectiveness.

So if you know the totem in real life, you can replicate it in a dream. Ergo, Arthur is going to have to damn certain when he's awake and when he's dragged under. It won't make whatever plans for him any more enjoyable, but he's all for not losing his sanity and following the same road as his dear Malorie Cobb.

Blinking his blurry eyes, he is greeted with the same set up as before, with Emilio crouched before him and goons flanking his restrained body on each side. Only this time, Arthur registers, deep seated aches of will be bruises bloom all over his body. He recalls the cannula being forcefully inserted into his arm, but he doesn't remember any dream that followed. It's been ingrained in him since his army days to record each dream and be able to play it back as if it was a movie he just watched when he woke up, and he hasn't forgotten his travels down under with the PASIV since.

Because of this, Arthur knows the only explanation for his amnesia is that he's dreaming right now. Goddamn bastards trying to trick him into thinking he's awake. They're going to have to try a lot harder than deceiving his eyes in order to succumb to madness.

Arthur glares flaming hot serrated daggers at the smirking Emilio lounging in his lawn chair across from him. _He makes for a lousy Point at least,_ Arthur huffs, counting his victories wherever he can find them. The man fiddles with his die and Arthur decides to inform him so.

"Does it make you mad that I didn't know you were in the business?" he tries to raise a quizzical eyebrow, but his face is numb and he can't know if he got the nonchalant façade pinned down anymore. But from the look of fury flashing over Emilio's face, it doesn't seem like it's the drug lord's son who has the upper hand.

His comment earns him a slap to the side of the head and ringing in his ears, but the angry flush coloring Emilio's cheeks makes it worth it.

The mob boss heir just about has his hackles raised when he drags himself away from his seat, standing at full height and finally deciding to grace the room with his omnipresent presence. He circles around Arthur's strapped down form as the cannula is slipped from his exposed inner arm from one of the hulking (and in Arthur's opinion, compensating for something) bodyguards. When Emilio slinks behind him and away from view, a finger brushes over the sensitive skin at the back of his neck and Arthur has to hide his flinch of surprise, masking it with a warning growl. If this is a supposed to be Emilio's show of dominance then he has another thing coming. A lilting _tsk_ berates Arthur's hostile behavior, the other man crouches to Arthur's eye level when he finishes his slow circle.

"Hasn't anyone told you to play nice with your captors? It doesn't seem very wise to make me angry." Emilio's hand rests on Arthur's knee, fingers spread and emitting heat hot enough even through the silk cotton blend of Arthur's trousers.

Arthur shrugs, face blank. "So I'm new to the being kidnapped thing, sue me." He doesn't want to let on that he knows he's dreaming. This time, he's got to keep all his cards close to his chest.

The fingers on his leg twitch in time with the flare of Emilio's nostrils.

"Plus," Arthur stares him dead in the eye, not willing to back off an inch and give this crazed man even the inkling of control. "I'm pretty sure I already got you mad at me, so I might as well keep playing my part."

The toothy smile that stretches over Emilio's face is both mildly startling and wildly disconcerting. This close, he looks like a feral dog, sparkling eyes, bared teeth, untamed hair and all. "That's right," he purrs fondly, almost as if he's forgotten. "I think it was around the time where you went into my father's head and ruined his life forever."

The other man appears pleased with himself and rests a hand over Arthur's chest, his heart fluttering madly under the warm weight. _Okay,_ he thinks, _this touching business has got to stop. _But the hand is fleeting as Emilio quickly undoes the top button of his vest – which Arthur notes is fully repaired, probably a mistake which was overlooked in replicating reality because of the focused frustration of Arthur's defiance, rather than his clothes – and slips a hand into the pocket where his die is hidden. Emilio rolls it on the dusty ground. They both look down at the three shining up at them.

The chuckle that fills the air is cold, but almost content. "Well look at that."

A sharp pressure is at the crook of his arm before his skin relents and accepts another cannula puncture, Emilio sliding another into his wrist at the same time. Arthur mentally keeps check of situation. Two levels down. He's still asleep.

"Sleep tight, Darling," Emilio whispers, and the words smacks Arthur harder than any slap could. Arthur can't keep the desperate hope from welling up inside him at the thought of his partner. He knows the Forger will be able to find his ransacked room, probably already has. He just hopes that the man will find something useful on the recording Arthur managed to start up before the scuffle broke out. Something warm and light nips at the edges of his fright, lightening the dread that has settled inside him. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised at the calming thought. He doesn't doubt Eames' abilities, never has, even if the man refuses to believe him. So with a hidden smile, he passes out with his thoughts lingering on his one hope out of this mad man's clutches. _Come on Eames, I know you can find me._

He supposes the worry that still gnaws at him is the unasked question of _when_. After that, he blacks out.

* * *

When he comes to, he's in the barn, strapped down to a chair, with Emilio hovering over him. So this is how it's going to be then. He doesn't give the people points for creativity, but he can damn well see how this could throw him off his guard if this is how they're going to keep starting the dream. He'll remember how he got here every single time. Begrudgingly, he concedes that the technique is clever if cruel. He's going to have to be absolutely certain when he wakes up for real. _Two levels down_, he reminds himself, watching his company warily.

"Toss him in the car!" Emilio barks, and Arthur is disgruntled by the use of "toss," not particularly wanting to be tossed anywhere. But he doesn't have time to dwell on it before he's cut from his binds and being manhandled backward toward the door, his feet scrambling to keep up with the long strides of his captors. A canvas bag being thrown over his head obscures his vision before he can make it outside.

He struggles even though he knows that it's pointless, and he spits out curses even though he knows the only response he'll get is laughter at his expense. It feels like he's being thrown into the back of a pick-up truck judging by the metal expanse he's landed on, and the goons clamber on after him, each pinning an arm down to the floor of the truck.

It's a tad overkill, really. Arthur knows he can be difficult, but come on, couldn't he have just been tied up again? It's not like he's going to be able to run anywhere, especially not in a dream. The inside of the bag moistens with a resigned, heavy sigh. He supposes that's the point though, he's not supposed to know that he's dreaming, is he?

The car rumbles to life, and they take off without any extra preamble, both his arms already falling asleep under the bulk of tweedledee and tweedledum.

Somehow, he finds solace in the ride over to the lake. His head keep on smacking back against the bottom of the trundle every time they hit a bump in the road (which is often, considering it was a dirt path), but his subconscious was kind enough to fill the dreamscape with life, the soft chirping of crickets singing over the hum of the car. He focuses on that rather than whatever plans Emilio has for him.

As hopeless as this situation is, his constant goading has distracted Emilio from two very important things. One, Arthur's vest is once again buttoned and ironed to perfection, and two, the drive over to the lake has given him time to think.

There's a bend in the road and he pretends that the weight shifting on his arms and digging into his bones doesn't hurt like hell. It's just a dream after all.

So where does he go from here? Arthur is pretty sure that there isn't a foreseeable escape route; not when he's at the mercy of a whole dreamshare team apparently and currently tired up to a chair in the real world. This understanding brings his thoughts to Eames.

_Eames_. He hasn't heard any mention of the Forger since he's been locked up, no taunting the safety of his partner in crime above his head, so he can only assume that as of now, Eames is safe. The job Arthur took to extract from Emilio's father was one when the Brit was off visiting his family in London for Christmastime, so Emilio should have no vendetta against the man. And if he really is out of harm's way, there is little doubt that Eames isn't looking for him already. He left his computer on for this purpose, knowing that while the Forger had his roll with the punches personality laid out on his sleeve for the world to see, he was fiercely protective and would fight tooth and nail for his partner, even if the only reason for it was to maintain their dominance over the dreamshare community.

It couldn't be helped that they rose to the top so efficiently, really, though their unlikely companionship had been a surprise to everyone, including themselves in the beginning. They fought and bickered and argued over methods of their work, but in the end, they were the right and left sides of the brain, the imagination and the logic. And when extracting from the brain was their profession, it only made sense that it came so naturally to them when they worked together.

Eames became the Extractor when he wasn't forging in a larger group, his creativity and understanding of the grand scheme of things paralleled by no other. He could charm his way down to limbo and back without any hint of deception, whilst wearing a different mask all the while. His ability to blend in to the crowd was only rivaled by how loud and ostentatious he could be with his disguise, creating a loud enough distraction for Arthur to slip through the woodworks, unnoticed as he stole secrets big enough to topple empires right from under their noses. Eames understood people better than anyone. He knew their fears and their desires; he could mimic them down to the nervous ticks and create people so organic and believable that sometimes his creations could be mistaken as any other projection in the crowd even by Arthur. He rarely alluded to it out loud, and when he did, it was often taken as "I'm surprised you were able to come up with this," but Eames was brilliant.

And as for him, Arthur was the one who saw the details. He did the research and could just about waltz with any computer that fell into his lap, making it twist this way and that, seducing it to divulge its darkest secrets to him like he was their saving grace. Digging up past history, relationships, bank accounts, emails, phone calls, texts, patterns, outliers, security cameras, and data, were his specialty, wrapping it all up in a neat little package that made it seem easy followed naturally. He played along the outskirts of the dream, rarely being seen unless necessary, but manipulating the whole scene with dreams so vivid and so thoroughly accurate that he could fill up the entire Louvre with each single one of the thousands of painting it held, accurate down to the last brushstroke.

They sometimes harped on each other like a two sides of a schoolyard rivalry, but it was how they worked. And it did work, much to their surprise.

In the present, they took a turn down the road and the bodies pinning him down shifted to accommodate. Arthur's stiff shoulders whined in protest, but he shoved those thoughts away, refocusing his attention back to less ominous things than potentially being taken to his miserable dream death. He wonders how long it will take for his partner to find him (since the possibility of _not_ being found is such a small percentage given Eames' record, Arthur doesn't want to begin considering it).

Eames wouldn't care about leaving anyone in the dust to save his own hide, anyone that is, except Arthur. Ari confirmed this fact when they were swapping tales of the inception job, him explaining the concept of giving a kick in free fall to a gob-smacked architect, and her telling him what happened on the levels below. She had told him, with surprise she couldn't fully mask, that before she went down to Limbo, Eames appeared unconcerned with her and Dom not waking up from their dream in the event of not being able to wake up himself. She seemed a little put off, under the impression that Eames would have tried to get them back, but she was still new to the business and didn't yet grasp the value of "every man for himself," or herself, rather. Eames was a forger, but he was also a thief, and thieves tend to be very self-serving creatures, something which the Point Man was quite knowledgeable of.

So Arthur was quite taken aback by the quiet concern — hidden under the guise of a chuckle and the ever present English commentary — that Eames displayed when Arthur was putting the group to sleep on the hotel level. He doesn't think the other man realizes he knows this, but Arthur was touched by the words nonetheless. So as much as Eames pushes his buttons, they have too much history and too much chemistry to let it go to waste.

Arthur lets his lips turn upwards slightly in a strained smile, his body still throbbing with phantom pain even though he's down two levels and the pain isn't _really_ there. It's just a dream. His arms hurt like hell though.

As if on cue, the truck sputters to a stop and the goons clamber out of the back, dragging Arthur along with them. He can only grunt and hiss in protest, his bloodless biceps screaming at the rough hands jerking him around, forcing him out of the car and onto the ground.

It's nothing short of a miracle that Arthur stumbles to his knees and steadies himself there, refusing to fall on his face and make himself to be the fool. He's not lucky enough that he feels a foot plant itself between his shoulder blades and push him to sprawl on his front anyway, his dead arms unable to catch him. The ground against his face, seeping through the bag, is moist and smells like rain. Emilio cackles once more and Jesus Christ the one thing he wants to do more than anything is punch this guy in the face repeatedly.

He's hauled up from the ground, mud clinging to his clothes, and strides as diligently as he can alongside the men bracketed around him. The ground quickly changes from squelching under his feet to sharp clacking under the heels of his loafers, the incline suggesting the presence of a hill.

They stop, and so does Arthur. He thinks about making a fuss, but his arms have lost their ability to move, hanging heavy and limp at his sides under the weight of meaty hands on both of his shoulders. The crickets had stopped their singing a while ago.

Something is being draped over his head. He can feel the itchy fibers tickle his neck and the hand that comes to rest near his jugular when the rope is fastened tightly. It's Emilio, and he's certain of it even though he can't see a thing. _They're going to hang me_, says little voice flickering through his head before he thinks: _that's not nearly painful enough_.

"You're being surprisingly quiet, Arthur," Emilio offers conversationally, though his voice is low, measured.

It registers to Arthur that he should be scared. He blinks. Once. Twice. The breath he didn't realize he'd been holding comes out silent, but shaky. His chest shudders. He _is _scared. Pain is in the mind, but being shot in the knee still feels exactly like a shot in the knee. He can only assume the same authenticity goes for crazy methods of torture. He's never had the opportunity of experiencing it before, but he wasn't too keen on ever finding out. But it's imperative that he doesn't let his apprehension show. His shoulders are tight, his back ramrod straight.

"It wasn't my fault you weren't giving me any fodder to make fun of you with."

The fingers lingering at his collar squeeze lightly before slipping away.

"You're still trying to take away the power that I hold over you… stupid, but admirable. It will be a pleasure to break your spirit."

The weight around Arthur's neck drops and he feels the tug on the rope choking him for a split second before he falls like lead, feet stumbling on the ground which was not as solid as he once thought. The momentum pitches him into the dark abyss below.

He hits the water, head first. He's going to drown, and though his mind is screaming_ JUST A DREAM, _it doesn't have the same reassurance it's supposed to have.


End file.
